The bottom line is clear: Our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them. On the contrary, waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling amongst themselves, threaten the long-term health of the U.S. economy, and prevent the U.S. government from turning its full attention to other pressing problems. -- Afghanistan Study Group

Diyala Prv:#1: At least two people were killed and another one wounded in an armed attack today at dawn in Al Nada village, Diyala. Gunmen attached the village and opened fire on civilians killing two people and wounding a third one, sources said.

#2: In Diyala, a police patrol found a bullet-riddled body in Al Saadiya District, police said.

Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"#1: Government aircraft attacked militant hideouts in the ethnic Pashtun-dominated northwestern region of Orakzai, killing at least 10 insurgents, political and military officials said. Thirteen militants were killed in similar strikes on Friday.

#2: Three paramilitary soldiers were wounded when a mortar bomb believed to have been fired by militants struck a security checkpoint in Mohmand, government and hospital officials said.

#3: Gunmen shot dead three Shi'ite Muslims in an apparent sectarian attack in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, police said

#4: At least 14 militants were killed in a fire exchange between Taliban and local residents in northwest Pakistan's Kurram tribal agency, local sources said Saturday. armed militants attacked the residence of Peace Committee members working against Taliban Friday night. In the attack two persons including a woman died and three other committee members got injured.In counter attack from Peace Committee 14 militants were killed and seven others injured. The situation is much tensed in the area.

#5: The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) shot at a motorcyclist in western Herat province and the man succumbed to his injuries in a nearby hospital, police said Saturday. "NATO-led forces possibly Spanish soldiers opened fire on a motorcyclist Friday afternoon injuring him and he died due to his injuries in hospital," Deputy to provincial police chief Dilawar Shah Dilawar told Xinhua. The incident, he added, occurred in Shidai area outside Herat provincial capital of the Herat city.

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A Kenosha solider was killed this past Thursday in Iraq. Department of Defense agents said a rocket propelled grenade struck a watch tower while Spc. Robert Rieckhoff, 26, was on guard duty. . . . Rieckhoff is survived by a son and daughter who live in Tennessee with their mother.

even years ago today, the United States and its allies launched “Operation Iraqi Freedom” “to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people,” as President Bush described it.

We now know that there were no WMDs, and that Hussein’s “support for terrorism” was largely a figment of imagination concocted by the Bush administration to justify an invasion that the American people might otherwise not have supported. So the war achieved only the third of Bush’s goals, handing the Iraqi people a freedom that it is now up to them to sustain.

Last week, at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, three Republican congressmen were interviewed by Grover Norquist. Maybe it was the friendly, nonconfrontational setting, but for whatever reason the congressmen were remarkably frank about the events of seven years ago and how they and their colleagues now view the war.

According to U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (R-Ca.) and U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Ca.), all of their colleagues in the House Republican Caucus now believe that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.